Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
That night, after dinner and dishes, Cora tried to read more of Lenora’s journal, but the words wouldn’t settle. Her mind kept circling back to Collister College, its ivy-covered buildings, the echo of laughter on old stone steps, the life that might have been hers.
When she closed the journal, her car keys were already in her hand.
She didn’t remember reaching for them.
She only knew she couldn’t stay in her house another minute with the ache growing the way it was.
She needed the Carnegie.
The moment she stepped inside, the hush wrapped around her, deeper than quiet, as if the building had settled into a watchful stillness.
“Good evening,” Adelaide said from the desk. She didn’t look up, just waved Cora forward as she continued sorting through brittle documents.
The rope across the Wing was down.
The door stood slightly ajar, a spill of warm lamplight cutting across the threshold like an invitation.
Cora hurried forward, her pulse skittering as she stepped inside.
A book sat on the table—already open—its pages fanned as though she’d stepped into the middle of a conversation she hadn’t realized had begun.
Her gaze flicked to the shelf.
An empty space.
The gap was where Volume I had been.
Cora quickly crossed the room and lowered into the chair, the lamplight pooling softly over the open pages.
Her fingers hovered a moment before they brushed the edge of the paper.
The words wavered.
The air shifted—charged, deepening.
And then she was gone.
She stood at the kitchen counter, the soft clinks of spoons against cereal bowls behind her when familiar arms circled her waist, strong, sure and wrapped in the scent of cedarwood and citrus, the cologne she’d given Aaron last Christmas.
“Looks like it’s feeding time at the Zoo.”
Hearing the comment, Penny and Leo growled, and they all laughed.
Cora leaned back into him instinctively, her body recognizing the shape of his even before her mind caught up. She turned slightly, just enough for their lips to meet in a tender, lingering kiss.
“You can’t work from home today?” she asked, already knowing the answer but wishing it weren’t so.
“I can’t,” he said, regret softening his voice. “The college insists on my presence today. Hopefully tomorrow.”
She loved the days when he worked from home. Even when he was buried in research, there was comfort in knowing he was close. Lunch on the deck while the kids played nearby, simple moments that felt like everything.
Kids.
Her gaze darted toward the table in a sudden rush of panic that eased when she saw them eating oatmeal. Penny and Leo. Five and three.
And they were hers.
Breakfast, she realized with a quiet jolt, was something she had made. Her hands had poured the juice, sliced the strawberries, stirred the oatmeal. The thought brought a smile that seemed to rise from someplace deep and long hidden.
“What about you?” Aaron asked, voice low beside her ear. “You mentioned taking this week off before starting your next project.”
She leaned back against him again, savoring the steady beat of his heart. There was no rush to move. No urge to break the moment.
An image from last night flared in her mind—their bodies tangled in moonlight and laughter, a connection that hadn’t dulled with time. Desire curled through her now, sudden and warm.
“If you’ve got a few minutes,” she murmured, toying with the knot of his tie, “we could head upstairs. I wouldn’t mind an encore.”
Heat sparked in his eyes, but he groaned, shaking his head. “Don’t tempt me. I’ve got a meeting in thirty. But I’m holding you to that rain check.”
She laughed and stepped back, though he caught her back to him for a kiss that curled her toes and scattered every coherent thought.
And then—too soon—he was grabbing his briefcase, kissing her cheek and slipping out the door.
Leaving her with their children.
“Mommy?” Penny looked up, eyes bright, a dollop of oatmeal clinging to her chin. “Are we still going to the library today?”
Her daughter, with the Summerbell green eyes and a heart full of curiosity, watched her expectantly.
“Yes,” Cora said, heart full. “We wouldn’t want to miss story time.”
She enjoyed being a paralegal. She liked her team, liked the puzzle of language and logic, liked the rhythm of meaningful work that still left room for mornings like this.
“I want to bring Kong,” Leo announced, scooping oatmeal high and letting it plop dramatically into his bowl.
Cora smiled, recognizing the sign that he was officially done eating. “Of course you can. Kong goes where Leo goes.”
“And I’ll bring Waffles!” Penny shimmied in her seat. “And the books I got last time so I can get more.”
“Before you run off,” Cora said, opening her arms, “how about a group hug to start the day?”
She didn’t have to ask twice.
Two small bodies barreled into her, warm and wriggling, laughter spilling into her chest. Wrapped in their love and trust, Cora felt a contentment so deep it nearly undid her.
If there was something better than meaningful work, a husband she adored and the children who filled her world with laughter, she couldn’t imagine it.
The library buzzed with the soft chaos of story time—strollers were lined up near the entrance, tiny shoes kicked off beneath chairs, cheerful voices blending with the rustling of pages.
Cora entered with Penny’s hand in hers. Leo had Kong beneath one arm. The familiar scent of books and crayons wrapped around her like a hug.
“Mommy, there’s the rug!” Penny tugged her toward the rainbow carpet where children were gathering in a semicircle.
Leo hesitated until a tiny voice chirped, “I brought my monkey, too.”
Relaxing his grip, Leo turned. “Hi, Oliver.”
Oliver, a little boy with dark curls spilling into his eyes, made his plush orangutan wave hello.
“Do you and Kong want to sit with Oliver?” Cora asked.
Leo nodded, then his brow furrowed. “You’re not leaving, right?”
“Nope.” She knelt to meet his eyes. “I’ll be right here.”
The librarian called for attention and launched into a spirited reading of Big Bear’s Big Boat. Penny nestled against Cora’s side, Waffles clutched tight. Leo giggled as Kong and Oliver’s monkey battled quietly beside them.
Cora looked around at the swirl of color, the warm din, and smiled.
She wanted to hold on to this—the laughter, the light, the simple magic of being here—with both hands and never let go.
After the last story, Cora helped Penny and Leo slip on their sandals.
“Can we get a treat before we go home?” Penny asked, bouncing on her toes.
“A cookie?” Leo added hopefully, Kong tucked under his arm.
“One each,” Cora agreed, “and then home for lunch. Deal?”
“Deal!” they chorused.
They strolled to Cozy Crumb Bakery. Warm, sweet air greeted them, sugar and bread and something that smelled like happiness.
Penny chose a butterfly sugar cookie drenched in pastel sprinkles. Leo picked a banana Kong cookie, clutching it like a treasure.
Napkins in hand, crumbs trailing, they headed back toward the library parking lot.
Cora breathed in the breeze, her children’s laughter, the warmth of a morning she never wanted to leave.
They passed the bench outside the library, a bench she’d walked by a dozen times, and Cora slowed.
Something shifted.
Not the wind.
Not the weather.
A pull.
A vibration deep in her chest, an old knowing hum turning its gaze toward her.
She stopped. Her breath caught.
“I don’t want to go,” she whispered. She hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
Penny looked up in midbite. “Where are we going, Mommy?”
Cora’s hand hovered above her tote. Her fingers trembled.
“I hope…nowhere,” she murmured.
But the ache bloomed. The pull tightened. The air gathered around her like a breath drawn and held.
Tears blurred her vision.
No, no, no. Please, not yet.
She wasn’t ready to leave Aaron.
Or Penny.
Or Leo.
Or this beautiful, ordinary, extraordinary life.
But even as she clutched the moment, it slipped…
And she couldn’t stop it.
The sunlight vanished.
The scent of sugar and bananas disappeared.
One heartbeat, she was reaching for Leo’s hand. The next, she stood in the still, dust-laced hush of the Possibility Wing.
Cora gasped.
Her tote slipped from her shoulder and thudded softly to the floor.
The table where the book had rested now sat empty. The stained-glass windows still cast their kaleidoscope of soft colors across the stone, but everything felt wrong.
No children’s laughter.
No breeze.
No Aaron.
No Penny.
No Leo.
Only silence, thick and unrelenting, pressing in from all sides.
“Welcome back,” came a voice from the far side of the room.
Cora turned, her heart still hammering against the rib cage that moments ago had held her children’s laughter.
Adelaide stood near the shelves, her hands folded loosely in front of her, her expression unreadable.
“I didn’t want to leave.” Cora’s breath came in shallow puffs, her voice raw. “I wasn’t ready.”
“No one ever is.” Adelaide’s tone held something gentler than pity but heavier than understanding.
Cora took a stumbling step forward. “They were real.” Her voice broke. “I didn’t think the book would open again. I hoped—but…it had been so long.”
Adelaide waited.
“I love them,” Cora whispered. “Aaron. The kids. Penny has this orange cat she calls Waffles. Leo never goes anywhere without Kong.” She pressed trembling fingers to her mouth. “How do I know all that? Why does my heart feel like it’s being torn out right now if none of it is real?”
Adelaide’s gaze softened. “You remember what you’ve lived.”
“But I didn’t live it,” Cora insisted, her throat tight. “Not here. Not in this life.”
A long silence fell between them—not empty, but full of something old and listening.
“Some lives,” Adelaide said quietly, “stay with us. Even the ones we don’t get to keep.”
Cora’s eyes burned. She turned toward the shelf as though the book might have reappeared, waiting to take her back. It wasn’t there.
“I want to go back,” she whispered. “Please. I want to go home.”
Adelaide was silent for a long moment before crossing to her. “If you had stayed in GraceTown, that would have been your life. But you didn’t stay.”
Tears spilled freely down Cora’s cheeks. “Then why show me? Why let me fall in love with a life I can’t have?”
“You chose to look.” Adelaide’s voice was steady, full of quiet weight. “Sometimes seeing is the beginning of understanding.”
Cora pressed a trembling hand to her chest. “I don’t know if I can go back to a life that feels like it doesn’t fit anymore.”
Adelaide rested a warm hand on her arm. “You’ve seen other paths. Other versions.”
Cora’s breath hitched. Aaron laughing at Big Sal’s drifted through her mind. Her own alternate self as a teacher. A paralegal. A mother. All of them real and all of them impossibly out of reach.
“I don’t understand,” Cora said finally, her voice breaking. “I was happy as a paralegal. I was excited to teach. I love being a librarian. But in all those lives but this one, I had Aaron. I don’t have him now.”
Adelaide took a small step closer, but Cora shook her head, backing away.
“I need to think,” she said hoarsely.
Without waiting for a reply, she turned. The door to the Wing beckoned. Tall, solid, real. Half open, as though it had been waiting.
“Cora,” Adelaide said softly.
But Cora didn’t turn.
Her footsteps echoed as she crossed the threshold, her vision still blurred with grief. Behind her, the Wing exhaled, a soft rustle of settling pages.
She kept walking.
She was done with being shown other lives. It was time—terrifying as it was—to figure out her current life.
Yet, even as she stepped out into the corridor, a familiar thread tugged deep inside her.
Gentle.
Unseen.
Leading her forward.